Madhavi Devi has always known songwriting was her calling. “I’ve been songwriting since I was six years old, which, whenever I say that, it sounds kind of ridiculous,” she laughs. “Obviously I wasn’t writing anything genius when I was a toddler.”
Based in Asbury Park, New Jersey, the 23-year-old singer-songwriter has quickly created a name for herself in the local scene, all while continuously expanding her creative horizons. “I knew that moving here would push me out of my comfort zone, not in the sense that I felt small, but more so in the sense that I knew I had already done a lot of other things, and to try and fit into a scene where I didn’t really belong would be a challenge,” she explains. “And that is what is pushing me to do things differently.”
“Everybody has the attention of a flea, nobody’s paying attention,” she laughs. “And then you gotta stop and think, how did people get people’s attention before? In person.” Whether she’s playing iconic venues like The Stone Pony or a local cafe, Devi thrives off a live audience, no matter the crowd. “Playing live is my favorite thing ever,” she says, only competing with songwriting itself. “They’re pretty on par with each other. I love it. Everybody starts as a small person, a small artist.”
But Devi has her sights set far beyond the Jersey Shore. “The next step for me as an artist, if I really wanna be something and be what I wanna be, I’m chasing a Grammy. I’m allowed to say that and own that,” she said. While the goal feels “a little silly to say out loud” from her apartment today, her ambition is clear. “There’s so much between me now and me then, but the next step is to do something big, the only way forward is to do that thing.”
She knows that dream won’t come easily, but her strong work ethic persists. “I wanna wake up every day, one step closer to the Grammy, what am I doing to get there? Putting yourself in that mindset opens you up to a lot more things than you would think, and you’ll find yourself in the right place at the right time more often if you’re setting yourself up for that kind of success.”
That self-awareness comes through in everything she does. Devi has used music as an outlet throughout her entire life, turning her hardest moments into melodies. “In general, songwriting has been the best way for me to process my emotions. I’ll know if something’s a big deal if I’m writing about it, and I’ll know if I’m over something when I’m not writing about it,” she said. “I feel like it’s something where the possibilities are just endless. You can do it in so many different ways…you’re not going to write something like somebody else would.”
When listening to songs like “The Carpenter” or “You’re The One To Lose,” it’s hard not to feel like Devi is letting you read her latest diary entry, deliberate and emotional. Her creative process ranges from methodical to intuitive, but Devi’s songs always remain deeply personal. “I really value a raw lyric, and that doesn’t mean it’s super complex either. I love packing a punch in a minimalistic way” she explains. “I think running with a metaphor is really cool, and trying to almost autopsy it. Figure out where my experience lies in something that wouldn’t otherwise be related to it. I have an album coming out next year, and there’s a song on it called ‘Sinkhole’, and it feels like the perfect example of taking some random thing and just blowing it up and being like, take a look at a sinkhole, and now let’s talk about love. And now let’s figure out what the Venn diagram is here.”
The upcoming album was an accidental creation of Devi’s, which she affectionately describes as “a breakup record that was written during a relationship.”
“I was in this relationship last year that really sucked.” she admits. “I was trying to write myself out of this feeling where maybe if I just wrote about it, all the problems would go away. It wasn’t an intentional record,” she explains. “It’s intense. It’s desperate, it’s sad, and it’s a little bit brutal.”
There’s an easy honesty about the way Devi moves through her art, leaving no stone emotionally unturned while still managing to get the crowd moving. With her first full-length album on the horizon, Devi is ready to get one step closer to that Grammy Award. “No one’s going to believe in me if I don’t believe in myself first, and if there’s not an opportunity, I’m going to make one. And it’s worked so far,” she concluded.
Photos courtesy of Madhavi Devi | Interviewed on October 28, 2025
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